Every life lost on South Africa's roads is one too many.
Behind every road incident is a person, a family, a workplace and a community affected. It is why road safety cannot simply be viewed as a transport issue. It is a social and economic challenge, and one that requires all of us to play a part.
This was reinforced for me at the 17th Annual Road Safety Summit held recently, where government, law enforcement, business and road-safety stakeholders came together around a simple but important principle: road safety is a shared responsibility.
There is something powerful about that idea.
Every time we use our roads, we place a degree of trust in people we do not know. We trust the driver approaching an intersection to stop. We trust motorists to respect the rules of the road. We trust someone who has been drinking to make the decision not to drive. And other people are placing the same trust in us.
Our choices on the road are rarely ours alone. They affect everyone around us.
This is also why no single intervention, institution or sector can solve the road-safety challenge on its own.
Government has an important role to play in policy and regulation. Law enforcement must be visible and effective. Business has resources, technology, infrastructure and expertise that can contribute to solutions. Communities influence behaviour and accepted ways of thinking. And ultimately, each of us has responsibility for the choices we make when we use our roads.
The opportunity is to bring those different contributions together around a common outcome: fewer lives lost and more people getting home safely.
For those of us in the alcohol industry, our responsibility is clear. While we tell consumers not to drink and drive, we also must play a critical role in helping to prevent it. We are conscious that as a beer company, our credibility on this issue must be earned through consistent action.
At South African Breweries, this thinking underpins SAB SHARP — South Africa Be SHARP and our approach to road safety: Educate. Enforce. Innovate.
Education matters because lasting change begins with people understanding the consequences of their choices.
Enforcement matters because awareness alone does not always change behaviour. The rules must be visible and there must be credible expectations that they will be enforced.
Innovation matters too. The growth of no- and low-alcohol alternatives— gives consumers a real choice that didn't exist decades ago. Better use of meaningful data and technology adds to that toolkit.
The three need to work together.
Over the years, SAB has invested more than R52 million in road-safety enforcement initiatives and today supports 34 Alcohol Evidence Centres across South Africa in partnership with Metro Police, provincial traffic authorities and the South African Police Service.
Those partnerships matter. But the ambition behind them is much bigger than enforcement numbers.
Our goal is not just to see more people arrested for drinking and driving. It is to reduce the number of people choosing to drink and drive in the first place. to
That is an important distinction.
If we want to make a lasting difference, we need to think beyond what happens at a roadblock. We need to think about what happens before someone gets into a car.
How do we make responsible driving the norm — and how do we make sure education and enforcement reinforce one another, rather than working in isolation?
There are lessons South Africa can draw from other countries, particularly around technology, targeted enforcement and interventions aimed at changing repeat behaviour. We should be open to those lessons while developing solutions that make sense for our own circumstances.
But perhaps the most important lesson is that progress happens when different parts of society work together.
Partnership does not mean everyone doing the same thing. Government, law enforcement, business and communities each have different roles and responsibilities. What matters is that those efforts move in the same direction.
For business, that means being willing to put resources and capability behind the commitments we make. For government and law enforcement, it means creating an environment in which policy and enforcement work effectively. And for every road user, it means recognising that the choices we make can protect — or endanger — someone we may never even meet.
We often talk about road safety through statistics, targets and programmes. Those things are necessary because they help us understand whether we are making progress.
But ultimately, road safety is about something much simpler.
It is about people leaving home and coming back safely.
That is an ambition that should unite all of us.
Making South Africa's roads safer will take education. It will take effective enforcement. It will take innovation and investment. Most importantly, it will take partnership — sustained long after the summits, campaigns and road-safety seasons have ended.
Because safer roads are not the responsibility of one institution or one sector. They are something we create together every time we use them.
I believe that more organisations across sectors should join the Road Safety Summit conversation next year. And we'll continue to share and amplify what we're learning through SAB SHARP.
* Zoleka Lisa is Vice President for Corporate Affairs, South African Breweries
* The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Media Group.